The identification and examination of cultural information strategies and censorship patterns used to propagate the controversial issue of the caricatures in two separate cultural contexts was the aim of this dissertation. It explored discourse used for the coverage of this topic by one newspaper in a restrictive information context and two…

The impact of cybernetics on information science occurs chiefly through the concepts of variety, the law of requisite variety, and theory of transformations. Through these it pervades every aspect of information science. However, other basic sciences such as physics, biology, psychology are in their spheres equally pervasive, and information…

A generalized framework for developing analytical and conceptual relationships involving the flow of information has previously been suggested. This paper provides further refinement, rigor, and extension for some of the earlier relationships suggested. (12 references) (Author)

In a document retrieval, or other pattern matching environment where stored entities (documents) are compared with each other, or with incoming patterns (search requests), it appears that the best indexing (property) space is one where each entity lies as far away from the others as possible; that is, retrieval performance correlates inversely…

Describes an experiment investigating the use of structural constraints and surface semantics by modeling experts. Results indicated that when interpreting information models, modeling experts focus on the structural constraints and ignore the surface semantics, even in situations where structural constraints contradict real world situations.…

In order to discuss the research goals of information science (IS), both its logical and its specific nature must be determined. Peircean logical analysis shows that IS may be classified in three parts: pure science, applied science, and technology. The deficiency in the present state of the art is in the pure science, or theoretical portion, of…

Search for an integrated, comprehensive theory of information science (IS) has so far been unsuccessful. Appearance of a theory has been retarded by one central constraint, the large number of disciplines concerned with human communication. Crossdisciplinary interdependence occurs in two ways: theoretical relation of IS phenomena to a given…

The literature of knowledge is a very large system in the cybernetic sense of intractibility to control. Improving access to it needs some simplifying theory. A step in this direction is a hypothesis constructed from basic concepts. These include cybernetic concepts of variety and requisite variety; a version of the mathematical concept of…

The purpose of this work is to help build and bridge between total overviews of the fields of information science and empirical research. This is done by building a model for linking multidisciplinary approaches into a relevant and effective whole, and for deriving testable propositions from this new framework. (63 references) (Author/KE)

A taxonomy for modeling information systems is presented. Epistemology is used as a prescriptive modeling basis and it is shown how the different models can be made scientifically operational by using a special kind of systems analysis. Results of a preliminary experiment based on one of the models are presented. (60 references) (Author/KE)

Discussion of information and information retrieval focuses on the connection between a calculus defined on channels and information retrieval, and proposes a model of an information retrieval system based on this calculus. Topics include conditionality, situation theory, the flow of information, channel theory, and four principles for an…

Information retrieval (IR) is driven by a process that decides whether a document is about a query. The purpose of this article is to consider "aboutness" from a fundamental, neutral perspective, to shed light on the nature of aboutness by formalizing properties describing it, and to define a set of reasonable properties of aboutness,…

The retrieval decision problem is considered from the viewpoint of a decision theory approach. A threshold rule based on earlier rules for indexing decisions is considered and analyzed for retrieval decisions as a measure of retrieval performance. The threshold rule is seen as a good descriptive design measure of what a reasonable retrieval system…

A new approach to information science, activity theory emphasizes the centrality of practice as doing and activity and foregrounds setting and context as essential orienting concepts. It can provide information science with a rich, unifying, and heuristically valuable vocabulary and conceptual framework that will facilitate the continual…

A general theory and taxonomy of human communication is discussed within which the information handling propensities of the special librarian can be evaluated for relevance to the axioms of library and information science. (Author)